Re: SB: Research Assistance Required

[gary dorn <garydorn@eepo.com.au>]

>Hi there,
>
>I am a final year Civil Engineering student at Melbourne University, and I
>am currently doing a literature research project on straw bales.  Should
>this project be successful I may have the opportunity to do some "real"
>research and testing of straw bales during my second semester.
>
>Alison


There is the testing video produced by blackrange films  - Building 
with straw- vol 3- Straw Bale Code Testing - which I use as backup 
evidence on the structural issues of strawbale.
i includes - wind test for in plane and out of plane deflection, fire 
test - very impressive, not much on loading capacity.
There is an engineering student there in Perth who is doing a creep 
test of a bale wall he has constructed at UWA - you may want to 
contact him.
In terms of testing items which I think are worth testing include;-

1. load bearing capacity of earth plastered (no wire) wall in a 
number of configurations.
a- along a 6m long wall nominally 7 bales high
b. a short wall (like a column) say 1 meter wide
c. a corner.
I think that lab test need to be done on the weakest wall we can 
think of - ie load bearing, earth plastered no wire, most tests that 
I have read have involved both the used of wire netting and cement 
plasters, which is something most of use are moving away from.
Earth plasters maybe an item you have difficulty with, because 
essentially they have very little engineering about them, in terms of 
tensile strength, plasticity, consistency etc.

2. water abrasion and absorption test of a number of different 
plaster regimes on straw bale walls, including,
earth plaster - nominally 1 part clay, 4 parts sand + chaff ( see 
Golden Ganmain for that),
lime plaster  A - 3 parts sand, 1 part lime putty
lime plaster B - 3 parts sand  1 part lime ( hyrdated lime )
lime cement plaster A - 9 parts sand, 2 parts lime, 1 part white cement
lime cement plaster B - 9 parts sand, 2 parts lime, 1 part grey cement

3. Testing of long term creep of a plastered wall on a typical timber 
stumped floor system, ie 4 x 3 bearers spanning 1800, 4 x 2 joists 
spanning 1800 @ 450c's

4. testing a wall design at its extremes - ie the height for inplane 
deflection for heights such as
a- wall  height of 10 bales
b- wall height of 12 bales
c- wall height of 14 bales
all with earth plasters, no wires
then I can see if my design are going to fail or not! - I reckon they 
won't fail.

something to chew about


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